i) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus and methods of patient warming and in particular to apparatus and methods for maintaining or restoring intra-operative normothermia.
ii) Summary of the Prior Art
Many methods of warming patients during surgery are known in the art. For example, the air conditioning system in the operating theatre may be adjusted to suit the temperature needs of the patient. However, in this case, the surgical team may suffer ill-effects from overheating. Further, this method may also not provide enough heating for the patient.
If extra heating is required, additional convection heating can be used to directly heat the patient. However, as well as being inefficient and in some cases ineffective, additional heating apparatus is likely to be bulky and may impair the surgical team""s ability to perform the surgery.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus or method of warming a patient which goes some way to overcoming the abovementioned disadvantages or which will at least provide the healthcare industry with a useful choice.
Accordingly in a first aspect the present invention consists in a method of raising or maintaining the core temperature of a mammal using a radiant heater comprising or including the steps of:
1) positioning the radiant heater in a non-obtrusive manner in proximity to said mammal;
2) energising said radiant heater;
3) directing the radiant energy produced in step (2) at said mammal, substantially at a region of the skin of said mammal with a high concentration of Arteriovenous Anastomoses; and
4) controlling the energisation of said radiant heater such that said mammal""s skin temperature remains within a predetermined range.
In a second aspect the invention consists in an apparatus for raising or maintaining the core temperature of a mammal comprising:
radiant heating means which in use are located in an unobtrusive position proximate to said mammal,
means adapted to direct radiant energy produced by said radiant heating means at said mammal, substantially at a region of the skin of said mammal with a high concentration of Arteriovenous Anastomoses , and
control means which energise said radiant heatng means such that in use said mammal""s skin temperature remains within a predetermined range.
To those skilled in the art to which the invention relates, many changes in construction and widely differing embodiments and applications of the invention will suggest themselves without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. The disclosures and the descriptions herein are purely illustrative and are not intended to be in any sense limiting.